Cockatoos by Florence Broadhurst
Australia
Florence Maud Broadhurst (1899-1977)
Florence Broadhurst's specialty was wallpapers. Her signature style featured oversized figures, basic, bright color, black and white contrast and silhouetted imagery.
Some characterize her as ahead of her time, but Broadhurst's wallpapers and coordinating fabrics were quite successful in mid-20th-century Australia. Her look is one aspect of modernism that is popular again today. Designer Kate Spade recently licensed a whole collection of Broadhurst designs
Kate Spade bag,
fabric design by Broadhurst
Broadhurst didn't invent the dramatic silhouette in the 1950s.
Here's a settee from the 1930s by Josef Hoffman of
the Wiener Werkstatte in Vienna.
Wallis Simpson
And Nancy Mitford
about the same time in silhouette prints
Elsa Schiaparelli dress
1939
The silhouetted figures are ballerinas in a print called
Degas's Dancers by Textile DuChame
A Vogue pattern in the 1950s
Broadhurst put her own stamp on the silhouette. Her designs have great appeal today.
Read the recent biography by Helen O'Neill, Florence Broadhurst: Her Secret & Extraordinary Lives .
Here's a preview:
http://www.amazon.com/Florence-Broadhurst-Secret-Extraordinary-Lives/dp/1742700594#reader_1742700594
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